Former NHL enforcer Georges Laraque set to run for Green Party in upcoming federal byelection

Georges Laraque, former NHL enforcer, set to run for Green Party

Former NHL enforcer Georges Laraque is slated to begin a new fight as he wades into a federal byelection for the Green party in a Montreal riding.

After days of dropping online hints on Facebook and Twitter, Laraque is to make the news official Tuesday morning with Green Leader Elizabeth May in the Montreal riding of Bourassa, which has the largest population of Canadians of Haitian origin.

The party hopes to make a breakthrough in the riding with Laraque, 36, who ended his hockey career in his hometown as a Montreal Canadien in 2010, then joined the Green Party as deputy leader. The Bourassa riding was held by Liberal Denis Coderre, who resigned in June to enter municipal politics as a candidate for Montreal mayor.

Laraque, whose parents are from Haiti, told Postmedia News in February that he was preparing to seek a seat in the House of Commons after
wrapping up his work with the NHL Players Association on a hospital construction project in the Caribbean nation.

I could just imagine what this would do for the party if both of us were there

“When this (Haiti) project is done, then after that I would work to choose a good place to be a riding and try to do everything I can to (be) side by side (with) Elizabeth and try to rock the House of Commons together,” Laraque said. “So when she starts a motion, someone can second it.”

Although the byelection campaign has not yet officially been called by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the Greens would get a head start on their opponents as the first out of the gate.

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Coderre first won the riding in 1997, beating the incumbent Osvaldo Nunez from the Bloc Quebecois, who had captured the riding in 1993.

Coderre had about 41 per cent of the vote in the 2011 election, fending off a challenge from the NDP, with the Greens coming in a distant fifth behind the Bloc and the Tories.

Speaking about Coderre’s resignation last spring, May noted that the veteran Liberal had worked with Laraque on a lot of major issues, such as homelessness.

According to Statistics Canada, 17.5 per cent of the population in the riding were of Haitian origin, based on 2011 census and National Household Survey data. The next largest populations of Haitian origin in Canada were also in Montreal’s east end.

For his part, Laraque has said he can already picture sitting next to May in Parliament.

“I could just imagine what this would do for the party if both of us were there,” he said.

“That would be quite the sight and quite something, because we’re both really articulate in our own ways. And really, the way we talk, and we’re not shy.”

In the midst of scandals plaguing Quebec politics, Laraque was forced to defend himself after police searched his Montreal-area home for business and financial records early in 2012. At the time, he and May said the search was related to a legal dispute with a former business partner and that he was not under investigation.

Laraque said he knows many people criticize him for being outspoken and sometimes question his background as a hockey player, but he said this doesn’t change any of his political convictions.

“I can’t worry about all the people who don’t understand,” he said in the February interview. “Because, man, if I worry about all the haters I have every single day, I would go fly on the moon, live in a bubble and not say anything and then be the richest guy in the cemetery when I die and not share anything with anyone. When you expose yourself to the world and I’m kind of a controversial person because I say what I think and I stand by things that people find really unusual.”

Laraque, who owns a few different businesses, said he has turned down offers from other parties to run in elections, choosing instead to accept an invitation from May for him to volunteer as deputy leader of the Green Party.

“I don’t just talk about the Green party; I live green. I drive a hybrid car, I’m a vegan, which is the strongest thing to do for the environment. I’m a huge animal activist. I preach by example by the way that I live and the things that I do,” he said. “If every Canadian could do an act to be more green every day, we’d be all winners whether you’re Conservative or NDP or whatever.”